The Art of Collaboration
with Jessika Khazrik | Sian O’Gorman (NYX)| Elizabeth Bernholz (Gazelle Twin) and hosted by Sophie Morrison (SAM)
Sunday | Centrala
Supersonic was founded and is led by womxn, one of our key aims is to be an inspiring space where womxn, trans and non binary artists who are creating extraordinary new music are celebrated and recognised.
Despite some positive trends, gender disparity is still a major concern across the wider music industry. In 2019, the top 10 female songwriters/composers in the UK generated 67% less revenue via PRS for Music compared to their top 10 male counterparts. This revealed that women, even at the top of their field, receive less opportunities than men for their music to be heard and performed.
This panel, hosted in partnership with Sound and Music, aims to amplify the voices and experiences of womxn and gender minority artists making new music globally. It will explore how to create a better working environment and a more cohesive scene, sharing first-hand experiences whilst also focusing on the more specific topic of collaboration and how this enriches artistic practice.
We are delighted to hear from interdisciplinary artist, writer, technologist, producer and DJ Jessika Khazrik, producer, composer and artist Elizabeth Bernholz aka Gazelle Twin and NYX choir Director Sian O’Gorman.
Khazrik’s sonic scapes intimately investigate the techno-political premises of the military economies we inhabit or forget. Often born out of vocoded collaborations with neural networks skewed with hard-edged Arabic rhythms and a very dynamic techno, Khazrik festively uses spaces of congregation—such as clubs, museums, her house, quarries, and the internet—to search for new, locally entrenched universalities that could collectively respond to the dystopias of our current time.
Photo by Teri Varhol
Avant-garde electronica musician and composer, Gazelle Twin’s repertoire draws from sci-fi film scores, choral music, underwater life and the paranormal. In 2021 she released a dramatic reworking of her techno-folk Pastoral album with the NYX choir.
“Several tracks from Pastoral are radically reworked to become drum-free, drone-filled immersive soundscapes. Better in My Day, a study in nostalgic bigotry, is made creepier by replacing the thumping beats of the original with heavy breathing and rhythmic grunts.” The Guardian
NYX is a collaborative drone choir and otherworldly electric chorus, re-embodying live electronics and extended vocal techniques. NYX looks to reshape the role of the traditional female choir, testing the limits of organic and synthetic modulation to explore the entire spectrum of collective voice as an instrument. NYX derived from an absence of intersectional, vulnerable and rich roles for female, trans and non-binary artists in opera, choral, electronic and performance music.
The panel launches Digital Bridge, a new project led by Sound and Music and the Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Arts (CMMAS) in partnership with Supersonic. This project is enabling new international digital collaborations and is supported by British Council.
